Stone thrower alternative house rules for Warhammer Fantasy Battle 3rd edition

I got two good games of WFB in over the BOYL weekend, on Saturday participating in the staggeringly impressive siege game, and on Sunday a "smaller" 3000 point orcs and chaos versus undead battle.

As I start once more to get a feel for the game a few rules begin to stand out as off or a bit broken, one of these being the power of stone throwers - particularly in comparison to bolt throwers - to the point we partially house-ruled them during the siege game. Another aspect then reared its head during our Sunday game, and further thoughts since make me want to take this further.

I'm clearly not the first to notice the power of war machines in 3rd edition, it's quite a common theme over on the Oldhammer forum and in fact Dreamfish and Gaj have already introduced some house rules which attempt to tone them down somewhat.

I think those rules take the toning down a bit too far - while you don't want stone throwers to be the focus of a battle, having them being devastating but unpredictable is part of their charm! That said I've always stuck to 3- or 4-man throwers, the large template from a 6-man thrower adds another dimension.

With this in mind these rules attempt to make a couple of things less broken -

• The accuracy of speculative fire in the rules as written
• The attractiveness of stone throwers as a way of killing opposing characters

Speculative fire

Speculative fire as written seems far too powerful, since it's meant to represent the crew chucking rocks at a target which they don't actually know the location of - speculatively. They might have seen a unit move behind a wood or hill but they've no real idea of where it is, and certainly not the exact location of the unit leader (unlike their controlling general).

With this in mind in the siege game we doubled the "miss" chance, so that as well as deviating twice as far the missile also deviated on rolls in the range 1-16, rather than only 1-12. How to handle the direction of the additional deviations is up for debate, you could roll an extra d12 for these but I like the neatness of having everything resolved with a single dice roll, like this -

You could also ban the targeting of characters with speculative fire - or, in the words of Erny, just remind your opponent not to be an ass!

Survival of the fittest

In later additions of Warhammer there's apparently a rule called "Look out sir" where a character, if targeted by a war machine, is only hit 1 time in 6, with a normal trooper being the true target the rest of the time.

To be honest I mainly object to this rule on account of its name - it doesn't seem to belong in a Bretonnian or Empire army, never mind orcs and goblins! It also seems to give characters a bit too much immunity compared to the rules as written, so I'd suggest something like this instead -

Heroes are quicker, more ruthless and luckier than is typical of their kind. As a result, when associated with or leading a unit, not only do they not get hit by ordinary missile fire, they're rather less vulnerable to war machines as well. If a hero is a target in this situation then roll 1d6:

5-6: the hero spots the incoming projectile, or perhaps reacts quicker to a warning shout, and manages to move out of the way. They take no damage
3-4: the hero is slow to react and only manages to avoid harm by shoving past their fellows, inadvertently pushing one of the troopers into harm's way. If there is a "spare" trooper (i.e. one not originally within the target area) they take damage in place of the "hero", if not no additional damage is caused
1-2: the hero is hit as normal

Aside from the above two suggestions I'm also not sure about the points values of stone throwers, particularly in relation to bolt throwers. I've noticed that Warhammer Armies doubles the cost of both of them compared to the 3rd edition rules, but stone throwers still seem rather cheap for a couple of reasons -

1. For a target you can see the hit chance is always 40% with a stone thrower (13-20 on d20). By contrast for orcs or humans (BS of 3) the hit chance with a bolt thrower is 50% under optimal conditions but given any modifiers (long range, soft cover) this swiftly drops away
2. For stone throwers any target under the template is automatically hit and you then just need to cause a wound for each individual model. For bolt throwers second and subsequent casualties are subject to diminishing returns - not only do you have to wound the previous target in order to have a chance of wounding further targets, but also the strength of the missile is progressively reduced. Therefore bolt throwers just aren't the mass killers that stone throwers can be.

Countering this is that bolt throwers don't present a threat to their own side in the event of a miss, and also have no minimum range, but taken overall still seem much worse value than stone throwers. I feel then that stone throwers should cost twice the points of the equivalent bolt thrower (as in fact was the case in 2nd edition).

Comments? Thoughts?

A year's worth of painting

I'm in retrospective mode at the moment. To be more honest I was planning to be in 6-month retrospective mode in July, although as with so many other things it's been pushed back to "after BOYL".

I'm not sure I have enough stuff painted yet to qualify for the Army Shots thread on the Oldhammer forum, and my output (and quality) pale in comparison to Orlygg's three years' worth of output, but in the last year I've gone from this -

to this -

Not an army yet, especially as I wouldn't be cheesy enough to field two war machines in a force that size, but a decent allied force for a battle or siege.

At my current rate I'll be at my BOYL target (24 more figures!) by about the end of the year, and my year target by who knows when...? But progress is being made!

Looking for Newhammer

Some posts on the Oldhammer forum and around the wider internet (Old Fogey, Lee Brady) have got me thinking. Oldhammer (assuming by that you mean to be playing in a certain narrative style with old rule sets - 2nd / 3rd edition in the case of fantasy) is all very well, but it's by definition limited in scope because of those rule sets. The fact that they're out of print means you're reducing your number of potential players, within an already niche hobby.

So I thought it worth trying to understand what's appealing (at least to me) about those older rule sets other than their out-of-print-ness (and hence GW no longer making your army obsolete in favour of their current sales target). And then I want to discover what current rule sets - if any - reasonably support an Oldhammer style.

Here's what I came up with:

1. Character-driven (within reason) - characters shouldn't be the be-all and end-all, but should be important. You should know, and care, if they're injured or killed, without them sweeping all before them.

2. Characterful units - as well as being the crux of the fighting, units should have character and differentiation. Goblins should be cowardly and none too dangerous in a fight, dwarves should excel over men in a straight toe-to-toe fight.

3. Support 'large skirmish' games - this sort of follows from point 1, in that if characters sway the battle then we have large groups but not armies. Not to say that a character can't be significant in a meeting of armies, as the tale of Troy will tell you, but I want characters to be people not demi-gods. So 100-ish figures per side at a 1:1 ratio suits me nicely.

4. Complete and self-supporting - the rules should contain everything you need, including spells and a bestiary, and a method for creating and costing your own creatures.

Although not on the list, since as long as (2) and (4) are catered for you should be able to fit this in yourself, a strong game world and a balanced set of factions are also important to me.

Although Warhammer's Old World is often derided as being derivative (or, more to the point I suspect, derivative but lawyered-up), to me that's one of its great strengths. Its use of archetypes not only allows a wide range of figures, from dark ages to late medieval, to find a place, but also provides a good starting point for narratives. It's also interesting (to me at least) to find out more about the parallels it's drawing from, and the often even more fascinating stories to be found there. Thanks to the Empire and hobgoblins I now know a lot more about the Holy Roman Empire and the Mongol invasions than I did a few months back (more on the latter another day).

On the balance side of things 2nd edition is pretty good, since there's only one race-specific weapon (ball and chain) and very general war machines. On the war machine side of things 3rd edition started to lose the plot (in hindsight), although within the context of the rules themselves the race-specific side of things was reasonably muted. Over the next few years this became the norm (or so it seemed to me) with various additions via White Dwarf in support of new model releases, which coincided with my exiting from the hobby. I'm sure with appropriate discussion / house ruling all of this could be worked through in a mature manner, either agreeing on certain aspects being overpowered or working in ways for items to be used by the 'wrong' faction. However whether a rule set tends towards the 2nd or late-3rd edition model might well be a reasonable indication of where a rule set is heading and hence whether it's right for me.

I love this stage of miniature painting...

... when you finally get to the shading / highlighting bit.

My painting's going very slowly at the moment, mainly due to real life commitments, and I've pretty much resigned myself to not getting the miniatures I want painted done by the time BOYL 2014 comes around.

However I did realise while painting my last batch of orcs that I struggle with enthusiasm at the base coating stage, so this time around I tried changing from my normal routine. Rather than basecoat everything then shade and highlight second, I tried with a couple of chaos warriors doing each main area fully from basecoat to finished, then moving on to the next. It does seem to help with the motivation side of things, even though I'm not sure it makes me any faster. So I think I'll stick with that approach for a while.

I'm not 100% happy with the way these two ended up. The shields especially I think are rather weak, after thinking with my last batch I had done a decent job on shields. And the green armoured guy has a rather heavy handed shading wash, amongst other things.

Other than doing the bases I need to move on to the next pieces now though. I'll come back these along with others of my recent efforts once I can field a useful amount of painted figures. Meanwhile the lesson learned is (surprise) preparation is key - although I'm loath to chop at the figure the green chap needs to lose his shield boss to give me a flat area to work on, whereas his compatriot needs some work to flatten out the join between his shield and the figure.

I've a battle looming in less than a week though, and at least 3 more figures (ideally 5) to get done by then...

More orcs, finally

Hectic real life and occasional lack of motivation have slowed my painting speed to a crawl in recent months, but my next batch of orcs is finally ready (for basing), including the first few of Erny's generous donation.

Their standard bearer isn't done yet (still in The Jar) and I've another 8 to add another day once I've been sidetracked onto some other units.

Amongst the many things I've learned from the Oldhammer forum is that it's OK to have irregular troops still have a unit identity. Hence these chaps are all painted in a variety of muted brows with the occasional touch of reds, and all have the same shield device (although they didn't all get the memo about the white background). The chaps at the left and right ends of the rear rank have kept their original 1980s paint job, except for new sheilds, hence the significantly different skin tones. There's reasonable variation even within the new batch though, so no harm there.

 

Originally my main Boyz unit was the classic Bad Moon tribe with red shield devices, but since this lot have an unhealthy association with a bunch of chaos followers, and with Morrslieb being green like them, I figured a slight colour change was appropriate. They're hence now the Mad Moon tribe (it'll end in tears...).

There's still plenty of room for improvement with my freehand sheilds, but they're getting better. 

Random parenting insight into my hobbies

Inspired by Snicket's vaguely related post about younger relatives and gaming I've finally dusted this off my draft pile... Posts on consecutive days? Whatever next?!

Being somewhat older now than I was when I started playing RPGs, and Warhammer Fantasy Battle a few years after that, I now have children who are themselves (independently) showing an interest in these hobbies. And it's enlightening to consider my own reaction to their interests.

A few years ago (before I'd discovered the Oldhammer movement, perhaps before it even recognisably existed) our eldest boy got into Warhammer 40k. I vaguely mentioned I'd played myself in my youth, and my wife and I saw it as a convenience in terms of buying Christmas presents, but otherwise I didn't express much interest. In hindsight I should have at least involved myself in the painting side of things but was held back by a couple of factors, partly not wanting to encroach on the hobby he shared with his friends but also coloured by my own rejection of the Games Workshop of 20+ years ago. Anyway, after a year or so his interest waned and that was that.

Then several weeks ago our number 3 son (counting in age order only, I hasten to add!) very hesitantly explained that he wanted to play Dungeons and Dragons with his friends, and seemed a bit nonplussed at our casual acceptance of this.

The point (I'm getting to it, honest!) is that, if he'd wanted to play Warhammer rather than D&D, my reaction would be more complex and probably in many ways less supportive. My reason - I'm betting the current edition doesn't contain anything along the lines of "Of course, there is nothing to stop you developing your own world background, or of adapting the background from any book you have read to form the basis for your games" (WFB 3rd edition, Introduction, p9).

Warhammer has always been a sales tool for a miniatures manufacturer, but from what I've seen (although this could be me confirming my own prejudices) modern Warhammer is proscriptive rather than creative, whereas a role playing game can't help but be about creation and imagination.

In the hypothetical scenario where he did want to play Warhammer I could of course espouse the virtues of Oldhammer, but it'd be my eccentricities versus what his peers are playing and the marketing budget of the 800lb gorilla. And (again, from what I've seen) modern Warhammer doesn't even give you the tools to make it up for yourself - for example number 1 son's version of the 40K rulebook is only a third of a rulebook by 2nd edition standards (Combat only, no Battle Magic or Battle Bestiary, and with the points values section of Combat removed).

Hopefully I'd be able to create a small bubble of enlightenment amongst him and his friends, but I'm guessing that (for example) giving gifts of non-GW figures would lead to the same expression of contained disappointment as when, in years gone by, a relative bought him the big console game of the season - but for the wrong console.

Signs you're not painting quickly enough, and some '87 trivia

I finally finished the first 4 troopers of my Boyz regiment for my orc / chaos / hobgoblin / moving-goalposts army (finished in the special sense of no bases or shields yet) and moved on to the next batch. These were undercoated at the same time as the first 4, and now need dusting before they can be painted! I may need to up my pace a bit, as I'm hoping to get these ready for BOYL '14 in August...

Apropos of this, while searching through a pile of semi-discarded RPG stuff I came across a promo flyer for the release of Ravening Hordes in 1987. The offer is for 5 different 2500pt armies: Orcs and goblins, Dwarves, Dark elves, Elves and Norse. The total models involved are -

• Orcs and goblins: 274
• Dwarves: 141
• Dark elves: 123
• Elves: 139
• Norse: 147

I may have chosen poorly!

It's also mildly interesting to me that chaos, which is so closely identified with WFB these days, doesn't merit a mention. Or perhaps they just didn't need promotions to sell chaos figures.